Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018
Qëndresa Deda, Altin Krasniqi, Dion Zeqiri.
Curated by Vala Osmani and Albert Heta
Curatorial Assistance: Donjetë Murati
Exhibition Architecture: Vala Osmani
05/11/2018 - 05/12/2018
Opening: 05/11/2018, 20:00
Venue: Boxing Club, Mark Isaku 8, 10000 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo.
Opening Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 4 pm - 5 pm.
Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina is pleased to announce the exhibition of the finalists of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award is part of the Young Visual Artists Awards program - a network of ten similar awards organized throughout Central and Eastern Europe with the intention of supporting the emergence and development of contemporary art and civil society.
The Jury of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018, comprised of Charles Esche, the director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Erëmirë Krasniqi, researcher and director of Oral History Kosovo, Adrian Deva, artist and art educator, Jelena Vesić curator, writer, and lecturer and Amanda Parmer, Director of Programs at ICI - Independent Curators International, New York, have selected three finalists to the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018, selected three finalists based on the criteria of innovative, strong and also interdisciplinary practices, the merit of their artistic portfolio, prior accomplishments and exhibitions, and demonstrated potential.
The jury was delighted by the interest shown in the prize and the variety of artistic approaches amongst the applications this year. Members of the Jury who were part of the Jury in 2017 thought that there was an improvement in the overall quality of the artistic work and the proposals.
The works of Qëndresa Deda, Altin Krasniqi and Dion Zeqiri share an interest in the relationship between local context and contemporary life as well as finding personal ways of processing the material and psychological environment of Kosovan cities.
There is an intimacy about much of the works while its implications are often social and political.
Qëndresë Deda (1988) is an artist who works across different media usually putting herself in a role of an object and subject. When using photography she treats camera as a mirror. Although her works appear to be very personal and intimate she deals with the phenomena of her immediate surroundings. The photographs from the D series, made during the period of five years, documents and depicts wishes, dreams, fears and nothingness. She mostly used Facebook space to present them.
List of few solo and group exhibitions include:
Galerija 7:069: S02EO1 - group presentation Trubarjeva hiša literature - 5. 11. - 15. 11. 2018, Second, third, fourth and fifth DIY Cabaret: Feminizem ni šala! – Cirkusarna NaokROG ,“Dance piece!” May –October 2018, Svetlobna gverila ALUO (smer video in novi mediji): Sladke barve / Sweet Colours, group presentation, May – June 2018, 7th – 11th March 2018 - Visual image representing the festival, Galerija Nočna izloba Pešak, KUD Mreža Qëndresë Deda: Kaj počnejo besede? March 3 – March 17 ⋅ 19th International Feminist and Queer Festival Red Dawns, FINDING KOSOVO A quest for identity, Exhibition June 14 – June 28 2017 ⋅ Atelierhaus Salzamt, Obere Donaulände 15, 4020 Linz, Austria, NSK State Pavilion - Group exhibition at Pallazo Ca'Tron, Venice
Artists of tomorrow Award (finalist) – Stacion CCA Prishtina, 2016, Biennial of graphic arts Ljubljana ( 28 August - 3 December 2015), Do you want something sweet? - Obalne galerije Piran (group exhibition) May 2015, Hajde! (Part II) Exchange program for young artists from Kosovo at Villa Romana – March 2015, Artists of tomorrow Award (finalist) - GAK – 2014, Here And There, solo, March 27. 2014 - April 25. 2014 - Cultural Center Tobacna 001 - curator: Alenka Trebušak, Selection of artists from Kosova, It Doesn't always have to be beautiful unless it's beautiful, Muslim Mulliqi Prize , Gallery of Arts of Kosova,30.05.2012 – 30.07.2012 , curated by Galit Eilat & Charles Esche, May 2012, Prishtina, AFTERMATH - CHANGING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE - Tendencies of engaged Post-Yugoslavian Contemporary Photography, Alone together: photography and the other, Gjon Mili Prize, Gallery of Arts of Kosova, 13.09.2013 – 13.10.2013, curated by Frits Gierstberg, Prishtina,The XV Biennale de la Mediterranée – Symbiosis – Thessaloniki 2011, D with Qendresa Deda - Curatorial by Albert Heta - 16/12/2010 - 29/1/2011, Tetris - Space for Manipulation, Prishtina, Right Turn - Turn Right, curated by Lulezim Zeqiri, Traffic Gallery, Perspektiva 2010, curated by Erzen Shkololli.
The work of Qëndresë Deda, produced for the Artist of Tomorrow Award 2018 revolves around the issues of identity, “utopic space” of freedom, rejection of all labels that you can reject, heaviness of what you are carrying, importance of creating a space, when you do not have the space you use your body-self as a space.
From symbolic parts of the images Qëdresë Deda related the image of “the stone”, which was a metaphor for Sisyphus myth and heaviness with the text that was part of the exhibition two years ago which she found important for the position that she is situated in now (and all of us). The otherness seen in us, occupation, displacement and also universal the wish and need for freedom.
Altin Krasniqi (1994) is an artist based in Kosovo. In 2014 Krasniqi completed his secondary school on painting in applicative arts in Peja, then he continued his studies on “Painting and visual arts” from 2014 through 2017.
Altin Krasniqi’s solo exhibition “Jutopia” recently opened at Soma Book Station, 2018, Prishtina, Kosova. He has taken part in numerous artistic colonies and collective exhibitions, a selected few are: “AR 2017” National Gallery of Kosovo, exhibition. Altin Krasniqi was awarded second place and a participant in the “Delicate urgencies” workshop at Cittadellarte, Italy and Art House in Shkodër, Albania.
For the Artists of Tomorrow 2018 Finalist Exhibition, Altin Krasniqi shows “Independent Trade Store”, that demonstrates social relations, specifically, the social, economic, political and cultural environment. While this practice is rooted in personal experience, it displays collective impact on social relations in general. Beyond a small independent trade store, this work is not limited to the space around the trade store, it is expected to go beyond this space and to show general aspects of a social character.
Likewise, it’s structural, formal and artistic is presented through the exterior, interior, and other subsequent elements that surpass this formal presentation and takes on a new social reality. This work shows the consequences that a society in transition goes through. These consequences are especially vulnerable in an economic aspect. These trades stores show the social impact of capitalism.
Dion Zeqiri (1996) completed his bachelor studies in interior design at the University of Prishtina (2018). He has been working in a design company as a compiler of creative projects. Through various styles, he began to practice painting since primary school.
Zeqiri works with various mediums such as: installations, sculptures, video and readymade objects continuously requiring to question those found objects for translating them in a communication, that puts his language in the social scale.
Dion Zeqiri’s first show was “Rumination” (2018), “Hapësira Motrat”, Prishtina, Kosovo.
Dion Zeqiri’s art practice lies as a departing point of his personal experience. He worked on empowering subjects that include actual emotional or physical conditions, by opening new interpretations around occurrence’s and circumstances.
The work produced for the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018 Finalists Exhibition treats the transformation of urban spaces as the result of bad construction, and many other factors. Such situations make it that objects, spaces, traffic signs and other things not to be used for their main destination. Particularly, once these objects that used to have a certain function, even though they remain visually the same, they no longer are used for their initial intended purpose. Today they hold different interpretations and they get transformed by their functional use; their de-territorialism in other conditions displays different interpretations.
Questions always make Dion Zeqiri go to the essence of occurrence, objects or the subject. On this he states “When I need to communicate, I need to ask and the beginning of questions is when I need information and gaining new knowledge. They bring debate, bring out new sentences, new quotes and the structural elements of the many interpretations and giving more and more context of the work.”
The Artists of Tomorrow Award is a pivotal independent award, organized in cooperation with Residency Unlimited in New York, supported by The Trust for Mutual Understanding in New York and main sponsors of the Artists of Tomorrow Award in Kosovo Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport of the Republic of Kosovo and U.S. Embassy in Kosovo.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award is a unique project which provides young visual artists under the age of 35 the opportunity to produce new art work, be part of a tailored education process, have meetings and presentations for an international jury of highly acclaimed professionals, have a joint exhibition with the finalists, curated by the curatorial team of Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, and become part of an artist in residency program in United States to experience New York’s dynamic art scene for a two month residency at Residency Unlimited.
The winners of the Artists of Tomorrow Award, upon their return form US, have a solo exhibition at Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, as part of the exhibitions program of the institution and the Artists of Tomorrow Award program.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award is part of the Young Visual Artists Awards program - a network of ten similar awards organized throughout Central and Eastern Europe founded in 1989 in Czechoslovakia by President Vaclav Havel and dissident artists with the intention of supporting the emergence and development of contemporary art and civil society.
The intention of President Havel, Wendy W. Luers, the US organizers and funders was to award young artists with a US residency - that is to expose them to the outside world - and to underscore the role of culture in democratization and civil society. They established an open and transparent annual competition judged by an independent and changing jury without the nepotism and favoritism. This founding mission and programmatic framework - to promote contemporary art, recognize and award artistic excellence, foster cultural exchange, and build capacity of local art NGO’s and civil society – is also a guide for Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina to implement The Artists of Tomorrow Award in Kosovo.
In 2015 Residency Unlimited (RU) became the new host of the Young Visual Artists Awards (YVAA) program in US. In September 2015, Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina has been tasked to assume leadership of the Artist of Tomorrow Award (AOT) in Kosovo starting with the first cycle in 2016 and with building upon and carrying forward the legacy of the Award.
In 2017 the Board of the Trust for Mutual Understanding approved the request of Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina to organize the Artists of Tomorrow Award in Kosovo in annual basis. In 2014, the organizers of YVAA had decided to turn the Artists of Tomorrow Award in a biannual program.
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina aims to enhance the potential and influence of The Artists of Tomorrow Award in the general developments in contemporary art in the whole territory of Kosovo.
The winner of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018 will be announced on December 5th 2018, at the Boxing Club in Prishtina, in the closing of the exhibition of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018.
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks all artists who applied for the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018 for their work and collaboration.
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks jury for their work and collaboration.
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks sponsors and supporters of the Artists of Tomorrow Award.
The main sponsors for the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018 are U.S. Embassy in Kosovo and Ministry of Culture, Youth, Sport, Kosovo. The Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018 is sponsored additionally by the Directorate of Culture of the Municipality of Prishtina and DZG.